2026 NTI Townsville 500, Event 07 of the Repco Supercars Championship, Reid Park, Townsville, Queensland, Australia. 10 Jul, 2026.

Team 18 will look to build on encouraging signs after a challenging opening day at the NTI Townsville 500, with Cub Cadet Racing’s Anton De Pasquale and Snowy River Racing’s David Reynolds classified 14th and 16th respectively in the first race of the weekend.

The opening 45-minute practice session was delayed by 20 minutes before ending prematurely under red flag conditions after Jack Le Brocq crashed at Turn 9 with just one minute and 40 seconds remaining.

While both drivers weren’t able to complete their green tyre run, De Pasquale was third fastest aboard the new Cub Cadet Racing livery with a lap of 1:13.8012, with Reynolds 14th.

The team missed the window in Qualifying, with De Pasquale 14th while Reynolds lined up 20th in an incredibly close session where less than nine-tenths of a second covered the top 20 drivers.

The opening 100km race proved equally challenging. De Pasquale became the first driver to pit, stopping on Lap 11 in an attempt to undercut the midfield after becoming boxed in during the opening laps. The strategy briefly elevated the No. 18 Camaro as high as 11th once the pit cycle played out, however time lost in the pit lane prevented the team from fully capitalising, with De Pasquale ultimately taking the chequered flag in 14th.

Reynolds produced a determined recovery drive after a difficult qualifying session. Dropping back to 23rd at the start, he steadily worked his way through the field to finish 16th, with changes made to the Snowy River Racing Camaro before the race delivering improved pace over the 35-lap opener.

While Friday’s results didn’t reflect the team’s expectations, both drivers were encouraged by the gains made during the race and remain optimistic of taking another step forward heading into Saturday’s action.

Team 18 returns to the track on Saturday with Qualifying for Race 21 beginning at 11:25am AEST, followed by the Top Ten Shootout at 12:10pm before the second 200km race of the weekend gets underway at 3:05pm AEST. All the action can be viewed live on Channel 7, Fox Sports and Kayo.

RESULTS & QUOTES

Anton De Pasquale, driver – #18 Cub Cadet Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1
Practice 1 – P3 (1:13.8012)
Qualifying – Race 20: P14 (1:13.5128)
Race 20 – P14 (Fastest Lap: 1:14.6896)

“Nothing too much to report. We just struggled for a little bit of pace and a little bit of balance in the car. We’re working through what that is, trying a few different things and hopefully we can find something overnight. We were just a little bit outside the window today.”

David Reynolds, driver – #20 Snowy River Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1
Practice 1 – P14 (1:14.1230)
Qualifying – Race 20: P20 (1:13.7103)
Race 20 – P16 (Fastest Lap: 1:15.1271)

“It was a tough day today. We didn’t have a lot of pace in practice and we missed our new tyre run, so we didn’t really know where we stood heading into qualifying. We thought we’d be a bit better than we were, but ending up 20th showed we had a bit of work to do.”

“Geoff [Slater, Race Engineer] made a pretty big swing with the car for the race and it definitely improved. I got a poor start and dropped back to 23rd, but we had reasonable pace and managed to fight back to 16th. We also lost a bit of time in the pits, so I think we made a step forward with the car, but there’s still more to find. Hopefully we can learn from today, keep improving the package and come back stronger tomorrow.”